The present invention relates to a tape printing apparatus having a manual tape cutting device.
One example of a conventional tape printing apparatus is described in a Japanese Utility Model Application Kokai No. Hei 1-85050. The conventional device includes a keyboard, a display, a printing mechanism having a thermal head, and a tape feed mechanism. A tape cassette accommodating therein an elongated printing medium such as a tape having a width of 12 mm or 18 mm is installed in the printing apparatus. Intended characters and symbols are input through the keyboard, and the printing mechanism performs label-printing on the tape with characters and symbols input through the keyboard. The tape printing apparatus is further provided with various editing functions.
Within the tape cassette, a tape spool, a ribbon supply spool, a ribbon takeup spool, and another supply spool are rotatably provided. A laminate film tape as the printing medium is wound around the tape spool, a print ribbon is wound around the ribbon supply spool, and a double-coated tape to be stuck to the laminate film tape is wound around the other supply spool. Further, in the tape cassette, a platen roller and various rollers are rotatably supported. The platen roller is adapted for pressing the laminate film tape and the print ribbon against the thermal head.
When electrical current is supplied to the thermal head while the tape feed mechanism is driven to rotate the plurality of spools, characters and symbols formed of trains of dots are printed on the laminate film tape, and then, the double-coated tape is attached to the laminate film tape to thereby form a print tape, and the print tape is fed to the outside of the tape printing apparatus.
Also proposed is a tape printing apparatus with a simplified manual cutting device installed at a position adjacent an outlet of the printed tape, the cutting device facilitating cutting of the printed tape at a desired position. The manual cutting device has a simple mechanism adapted to cut the printed tape easily and neatly with a pair of scissors including a movable blade and a stationary blade by depressing a cutting button.
In the tape printing apparatus provided with the above described simplified manual cutting device, the print tape can be cut at any timing regardless of during the printing operation where the tape feed mechanism and the thermal head are controlledly driven. Accordingly, when a cutting operation is made by mistake while a printing operation is being performed, the tape printed and fed forward is caught by the scissors of the manual cutting device, and hence, the tape cannot be fed out of the tape printing apparatus. Thus, the tape cannot be fed to the outside, but may be entangled with a driving system in the vicinity of the outlet of the tape cassette and jammed, to render the tape cassette inoperative.
Further, even if the print tape does not get entangled with the driving system in the vicinity of the outlet of the tape cassette as a result of tape cutting while it is being printed, previously printed document remains on the print tape at a tape region bridging between the printing position and the cut position. With this state, if subsequent printing operation is performed, the newly document may contain the previously printed document. That is, since a given distance is provided between the printing position and cutting position positioned downstream thereof, tape cutting must be carried out after the tape is fed by the given distance, otherwise the printed document is inadvertently cut, or a newly printed document may contain the previous cut document after cutting. Therefore, the thus printed tape may not be usable and may be wasted. In order to avoid this problem, the part of the document remaining in the tape cassette and in the tape printer must be intentionally discharged by feeding the tape before the subsequent printing operation. However, such work may be troublesome, and may still be wasteful if excessive length of the tape is discharged out of the tape outlet.